Selecting the proper metal or metal alloy for a job means knowing its properties and how it will perform in a certain application.
When it comes to choosing the right metal for making gears, that expertise can be even more crucial so those gears are manufactured efficiently and correctly.
For 30 years, Atlas Bronze has been a metal service center and broker for many industries needing the right bronze alloy, including the gear manufacturing industry.
“In the grand scheme of the metals industry, you’ve got your white metals — like your steels and irons and things like that — and then you’ve got your red metals — copper-based alloys,” said Josh Smith, vice president of sales for Atlas Bronze. “Red metals are 1 percent of the metals industry, and the bronze end of the red metals is 1 percent of that 1 percent, so it’s very niche. It requires more of a specialized understanding of the material itself and all the applications it’s used in — what’s going to be appropriate in a gear to not break the teeth or to not wear away when it’s rubbing against steel or something like that.”
Finding the correct alloy
In order to specialize in that metals niche, Josh Smith pointed out that Atlas Bronze has gone to great lengths to ensure his team has a good understanding of the nuances of using the correct metal alloy.
“When someone making gears calls us, even our first-level employees bring a depth of bronze knowledge that’s hard to find in most places; we work closely with our customers to make sure they get the right material for the job,” he said. “We really try to leverage our knowledge and all the years of experience that we have under our roof so that we’re connecting our customers with the best solution for what they’re asking for.”
To that end, incorporating bronze into gear production can often be used as a stop-gap to preventing unwanted downtime, according to Josh Smith.
“Anytime you’re using bronze, you want the bronze to wear away before any of the other steel parts,” he said. “In a situation where you’re running a machine and you want that gear to not necessarily fail, but fail before anything else, it’s going to be a less expensive part. It’s a sacrificial material. Any situation where you want the bronze to be wearing away before any of the more expensive-to-machine steel parts, that’s where it would be a good application. We’ve seen plenty of prints come across our desks where it’s a gear or a gear blank.”
Very specific alloys can be found in gear bronze, according to Josh Smith — for example, C90700, as well as C90300, C90500, and C92200.
“They’re in that family of bronzes you would typically find,” he said. “We’ve seen them made in aluminum bronze — C95400, C95500, C95800. And it’s in a breadth of industries, too. It’s not just one specific one. It could be going into a machine; it could be going into an airplane; it could be going into some sort of hydraulic situation for heavy machinery. There are a lot of details that we need to know to find out what’s going to be appropriate for what application. We’re not going to recommend something softer like a C93200-bearing bronze when it’s going into a piece of heavy equipment like a crane. You’re going to want something more robust like a C86300 manganese bronze that’s not going to fail in the field.”
‘How can we help you?’
Atlas Bronze has the expertise to get the proper metals to its customers, but a business doesn’t thrive in a competitive sector on inventory alone. That company must go beyond that in order to become a go-to, integrated part of a business’s routine.
“Our philosophy is simple: How can we help you?” said Tom Smith, president and founder of Atlas Bronze. “In the metals industry, many people lack a deep understanding of bronze, but we have that expertise and can typically provide assistance. This philosophy is very important to me. I also believe in treating others the way you want to be treated. My mother was a waitress and restaurant owner, always serving others. Over the years, I’ve learned to treat people as I would like to be treated. This principle is something you often hear reiterated at Atlas.”
That philosophy has helped Atlas Bronze to grow into a modern-day service center, according to General Manager Anthony Mandrik.
“We hold onto the old-school values like the Golden Rule because trust, reliability, and personal relationships are really important,” he said. “But in modern day terms, we want to evolve and use the technologies that are coming and around us. We’ve made significant investments in technologies, computers, and training. We send our people out to get metallurgy training and other education with hands-on visits at the mill. Recently, we went to a sand-casting foundry and learned about 3D printing and how they’re printing the molds with the 3D printer instead of making them with the old-school method of wood.”
That also means incorporating AI tools, according to Mandrik.
“We’re hoping that’s going to improve our turnaround time, responsiveness, and customer service,” he said. “But again, we’re still not getting away from what Tom said in terms of ‘how can I help you?’ We don’t want to go too far where it loses that personal connection. It has to do with us understanding bronze and having some creative problem solving. You can’t have that if customers don’t trust you and if you don’t take the time to understand the questions.”
Gearing up for a challenge
Being a trusted metal source is important to be sure, but Josh Smith said when Atlas Bronze gets a challenge, that’s when things really heat up.
“That’s the fun part of what we do,” he said. “A lot of what we do, the bar stock end of it, tends to be very monotonous, so when a challenge comes across our desks, it’s exciting. Our philosophy with any sort of challenge is to collaborate and ask questions. There are a lot of assumptions that people in the metals industry make about what’s available and what’s not available, so our team asks additional questions beyond what a customer might be thinking.”
For example, Josh Smith said if a customer called asking for a large diameter solid piece, Atlas Bronze would want to know if the customer was making a bushing or are they putting a hole in it.
“We’ll ask more questions so that we’re giving the customer something nearer to their net shape; it’s going to be lighter, less expensive, and less time for them to machine when the customer may have come in asking for something they assumed was just available one way,” he said. “Anything that comes across our desks, we’re looking for the optimal method of manufacture. We’re looking for the optimal alloy, the optimal size, and the problem they’re trying to solve when they call us. We’re trying to be that connector between what they need and what’s available.”
Making a solution better
The team at Atlas Bronze is not just available to get the customer what it asks for, but to offer suggestions that might make the solution even better for the customer, according to Josh Smith.
“Sometimes people are asking for things that are no longer made or they’re not compatible with the size and the specification that they want,” he said. “We’re letting them know this is what you can get today. You might’ve been able to get that 20 years ago, but things have moved along, or they’ve been superseded, so this is what we can get today. And if you get it in this shape, we can save you so much more money if you just let us do a little rough machining, which means we may have a better solution for what you’re asking for. There are certain pressure points that customers have that they don’t necessarily disclose upfront, so asking question is probably our biggest tool to really getting the customer what’s going to help them best.”
And a customer’s solution isn’t always just the metal, but it’s the service side as well, according to Mandrik.
“How quickly do they need it? Can they get away with different types of casting methods depending on the time? What’s the emergency state?” he said. “There’s so much more to it than: It’s just metal. Because the truth is, it’s not just about the metal, it’s also about the delivery.”
That means getting the customer what it truly needs in the end, according to Mandrik, whether that be keeping supply chains open or attending to phone calls to keep a million-dollar project moving quickly.
“We take the time to listen closely, dig into the deeper questions, and draw from our combined knowledge — whether it’s Tom, a metallurgist, or just some creative problem-solving — to get to the heart of a customer’s challenge,” he said. “When your sales team can have meaningful, technical conversations with engineers to help them find solutions, that really sets you apart. It’s not your typical sales office.”
Community focused
Being a family-owned and operated business, Atlas Bronze has made it part of its mission to be connected to the community in a multitude of ways, according to Melissa Andreas, marketing coordinator with Atlas Bronze.
“We work a lot with the community,” she said. “We like to give back by supporting school sports and other activities. We give to organizations — St. Jude and Samaritan’s Purse. That’s what makes a lot of us proud is that we can help others. That’s our main goal: to help people. We are a modern-time vendor with old-time values, and our dedication to this industry and others is very dependable and strong — just like bronze.”
Looking to the future
As Atlas Bronze continues into its next decade, the company expects to continue to expand, according to Mandrik.
“The gear industry is constantly evolving, and we’re already seeing an increase in consolidation with the small shops being acquired and absorbed by the bigger companies,” he said. “At the same time, expectations around precision, speed, and quality are still in demand and will continue to be in demand. We expect growth in the industry, and we want to make sure that we stay positioned to grow right alongside with the industry.”
To meet those demands, Atlas Bronze is expanding its sales office with another 1,500 square feet to its customer service department, according to Mandrik.
“The reason we are focusing on customer service, is because we believe strong relationships and responsive support will be the key differentiators moving forward,” he said.
Josh Smith’s concern of smaller companies getting bought by larger entities is that the knowledge from those smaller companies tends to get lost when everything is consolidated under one roof. By keeping Atlas Bronze as an independent, family-owned entity, he hopes to protect and nurture that expertise both now and into the future.“I see it more as keeping that knowledge alive and preserving what has been done before, and I see us continuing to become more valuable while staying more agile than everybody else, because of our size,” Josh Smith said. “We’re in that mid-range so that we can compete with larger entities, but we can give service like smaller entities. That sets us apart. And over the next 10 years, it’s only going to improve. That dream is not to become this huge company, but it’s to continue doing what we do well and just continue to connect people with solutions that are going to solve what they need. That’s what brings us joy. That’s what brings us fulfillment.”
